MITCHELL
May 5, 2009
Life in Nicaragua
Hello from the Mitchell’s! It is hard to believe that we have been living here in Nicaragua for nearly four months and as we look back on those months we feel that they were spent establishing ourselves here in the community and the base.
Tanzi’s
mornings during the week begin with 27
preschoolers giving her hugs. She works as the
assistant in this class, teaching them English,
preparing assignments and projects for all
subjects, helping the students in class work, as
well as keeping order in the class. She also
teaches English in the 1st grade, which is a
class of 21 and the 3rd grade that is a class of
29. It has been a new and enjoyable challenge
for her, as she has never taught English, done
lesson plans or grading. The school that the
base runs has 150 students that are mainly from
the barrio where the base is located. Many of
these children have very tragic home situations,
they have been and are being abused and
neglected. The school provides a safe haven,
where they can get a good Christian-based
education, be encouraged, loved, and also
provided with a meal, which for some is the only
meal they receive in a day. Please continue to
pray for Tanzi as she, through God’s grace and
power, portrays his love to these children.
John
is keeping busy with a number of projects around
the base. Currently, there are a number of
physical challenges facing this base and John is
designing solutions and working on implementing
them. The attached picture is of a hand pump
that he built last month, to help draw water
from a partially underground storage tank. The
pump uses locally available resources, has no
moving parts and took about an hour to put
together. Water service is quite scarce here so
his next project is a very large (15,000 gallon)
water tank to collect water from the roofs and
store it for later use. John is hoping to have
the funds in place to build the tank before the
summer is over and the worst of the rainy season
hits. Future projects also include sola
r water
heaters, a garden, and an aquaponics system that
combines fish farming with plant growing. John
is also helping in the kitchen twice a week (who
would have guessed) and helping to organize for
short term mission teams that work at the base.
We Have Furniture!
When we first arrived we were on a hunt for a house, and thankfully within a week we were moved into a beautiful house walking distance from the base. We got a great deal which included a fridge and a stove, and that was it. For three months we prayed for the finances to buy furniture, and thanks to God’s faithfulness through you we were able to buy some beautiful furniture! Thank you!
A
few prayer requests:
- Continued prayer for Tanzi’s stomach. She has had problems digesting a number of foods which makes eating in community more difficult (and eating less enjoyable!)
- Our efforts in learning Spanish. We take classes each day but we want to be able to converse more freely than we now can.
- Establishing relationships, we know this takes time but having close friends makes living and working here much more of a joy.
Well, that is what’s new in our lives. We would love to hear what is new in yours. We love you and miss you all. Talk to you soon.
The Mitchell’s
